Topping Off

Here I have to jump ahead a little, throughout the project I have been puzzled over how to do the essential fencing. we have been visiting garden centres, diy stores, fencing companies and looking over some very nice display fencing at our favourite supplier the Timber Decking Company. We have also been spending a lot of money, well over £1000 has been spent already. In real terms this is next to nothing for what has been achieved, but it is putting pressure on the plastic, and we have other fish to fry. In particular we have been planning a three week "holiday of a life time" in the United States, hopping from place to place sometimes meeting with our good friends Barry and Sue who will be on a similar but slightly different tour, for us it will be Washington, Front Royal, Williamsburg, Ocean City, Lancaster, Philadelphia, New York. We have I think negotiated a pretty good deal for the trip, but it is still a small fortune.

So our search for fencing is very budget conscious, we are also aware that the length and wide of the deck does not divide neatly into the dimensions of ready made panels and some fancy work will be needed for a neat result. We decide on simplicity. The fence posts will be 3"x3" slotted into post holders secured into the deck with coach bolts, and the fence itself will be simple trellis.

The fencing company that supply this will not make up of supply the wood for not standard lengths of trellis, but Gary at the Timber Decking Company is as cooperative as ever and gets hold of the wood for us.

So now the decking board can start to be lain, staying a little away from where we want to attach the post brackets and for that matter fascia boards will also need attaching to the exposed joist ends. But all that will be somewhat easier when we can actually stand on a solid deck.

There are three basic ways you can fix down decking, nails, screws and fancy concealed fixing. Nails fired from a nail gun is the way they do it in the trade, very quick very cheap, but once the boards are down they ain't coming off again in a hurry. We have a manhole to cover and we may need to gain quick access, in fact a few years on this precaution is validated as we suffer a real drainage disaster. We decide on screws as our fixing method, a lot of screws! There are 30 joists and 20 deck board in width for most of the deck, needing 2x30x20 screws not counting where boards join or where the deck is "L" shaped to the steps, that is 1200 screws and then some.

How do you fit 1200 screws? I tried a few ways, with pilot holes and using my Black and Decker drill as a power screw driver. But the most productive way I found was using a "Yankee" ratchet screw driver and a gentle helping hand with a club hammer! I cannot over emphasise the difference in productivity a decent Yankee screwdriver makes. I think I'd still be laying the boards now with it. Mine lasted the duration of building the deck, but broke shortly afterwards, but it had earned its cost my then.

The other issues when laying boards are spacing and warping. Deck boards are not perfect and need a lot of diligence to lay well over long lengths. I have no basis for comparison, but I feel the boards we got were pretty good, only one board was particularly poor, and we are talking about quite a lot of board here.

Spacing can be controlled by using 6" nails punched through pieces of card as separators, the card prevent the nails falling through the deck. where there is an issue with warping, a nail or to at the side of the board can temporarily hold it in line. You then work from one end of the board to the other. Working towards the middle with a warped board is said to concentrate the warp into the middle making finishing impossible. This makes sense to me and I did not have any reason to try and find out the truth of the matter.

The Fascia Boards

Fixing these required a little thought, holding up a 4.8m plank with one hand and hammering in a nail with the other is not very feasible. What I did was nail in the few wood scraps beneath the end of some of the joist ends, so I could perch the fascia boards in place for nailing. Sitting on the deck above nailing in the board below did not work well for me, I bent a lot of nails. Working from below would have been very awkward as well though. I guess all these types of skills take a certain amount of practice to perfect, but I never got proficient at this one.